Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson Thank you to book editor Claire Mabey for commissioning this article, which first appeared on The Spinoff on 3 May 2005. *** Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris (who was born in England in 1837 and who died in Nelson in 1925) by Michele Leggott (poet) and Read More…
Tag: emily harris
Rebecca Rice talks about Groundwork at Te Papa
The week before last Rebecca Rice, Acting Head of Art at Te Papa, officially launched our book Groundwork: The art and writing of Emily Cumming Harris in a wonderful evening that brought Emily’s art and writing into the light again. Rebecca’s speech touched on many of the themes in our book and she has kindly Read More…
Groundwork: The art and writing of Emily Cumming Harris
Coming to a bookshop near you 10 April 2025 and available from Te Papa Press here. RRP $60.
A letter from Emily Harris, 1862
Story by Michele Leggott It is November 2024. Harris descendant Heather Jones hand-delivers Emma Hill’s scrapbook, the real thing, to a kitchen bench in Devonport. The scrapbook and an envelope of family letters and photos has made its way from Judith Briant in Marton to Heather in Clevedon to its latest destination in Auckland. In Read More…
Emily writes to Harry Moore, 1910
Outside the hotel on Wentworth Avenue the temperature has hit 36 degrees. Sydney is burning: bushfires ring the city to north and west and an apocalyptic haze is turning the CBD sepia. We opt for a research day in our room and invite Sue Needham to come down with her big folders of Emily Harris Read More…
The Emily line in NSW: Moore, Tregeagle, Needham
The first person to transcribe Emily Harris’s 1860-61 letters at the Taranaki Museum in January 1999 was Sue Needham. For a long time we assumed that Sue was a staff member or a summer intern because part of her typed transcript is on museum letterhead. Later we learned from correspondence held by Roseanne Cranstone that Read More…
On the ground at Nile St
We’ve been thinking about 34 Nile St, Nelson for a long time now, consulting street plans, Post Office Directories and electoral rolls in our efforts to trace the movement of Harris family members on the site 1862-1925. We know that the family arrived in Nelson in three instalments. Sarah Harris sailed 11 April 1860 from Read More…
Captain Stoney’s Awful Novel
The pencilled comments in Puke Ariki’s copy of Taranaki: A Tale of the War by Henry Butler Stoney are unanimous in their condemnation of the book. ‘Bunkum,’ says one. And: ‘It is rarely I have read a book in which I have not found some passage worthy of remark or of transcription, but this is Read More…
Five Venturesome Women in a Bullock Cart
‘I believe I was at that time the only girl in all Taranaki who ever wrote a line.’ Emily Harris’s words, written years after the events they describe, are still electrifying. A young woman, writing poetry, in wartime Taranaki? Who knew. She goes on: ‘I did write some verses in the evening but never showed Read More…
Writing Lines: highlights from Emily’s 1860s letters
There is nothing like copy editing and proof reading to focus the mind and eyes on textual detail. But the same close attention also tunes the ear to tones and inflections of the voice coming off the page. After our latest stint with Emily’s writing, it was the work of a moment to go cherry-picking Read More…